February 10, 2011

She's Ba-ack!!

I know. I know. I'm not doing a very good job of keeping up my end of the bargain here. To say I've been lacking the motivation to post these past couple weeks is a gross understatement. The fear crept in, and allowed to stay too long, it ate away at the good and the creative and the happy. The closer we got to Sophie's surgery date, the tighter I hugged my kids, an ever present lump in my throat and tears that constantly threatened to spill over. OK. They did more than threaten. They spilled over. A lot. I was rattled. I even had my mother-in-law rattled.

I confessed to WM that the most recent round of surgical procedures had me Terrified. Yes, with a capital T. That sort of terrified. Fortunately, this mama's intuition was wrong for a change. Perhaps, the nagging ickiness that gripped my heart had more to do with the fact that each time Sophie conquers one condition, she trades it for another. She had her cleft repair the beginning of December, only to gear up for the mal-rotation and g-tube surgery. The plans were laid to address those issues, and she was diagnosed with reflux of the kidneys. If she continues to have break through UTIs, surgery will be required to fix that issue. You can see why I'd have cause for concern.

Sophie, this mama's sorry she doubted you, feisty girl that you are. She was in, out and done faster than any of us imagined, all procedures deemed successes. The DL/B determined that the laryngeal cleft repair was intact and no further adjustment necessary. Tubes were placed in her tiny little ears to aid in her conductive hearing loss. They work. Believe you me they work. Papa opened a can of pop in the kitchen for a mid-afternoon refresher today. Sophie, snuggled in my lap on the living room sofa, jumped about 6 inches at the sound of the snap and hiss. Her little innards have been adjusted here & there and her g-tube is in place and healing nicely. Playing Nurse Kendra for a brief moment this morning, I took out Sophie's stitches myself. The g-tube was easy-peasy to adapt to, and after just one day at home, my mom was even hooking up feedings as if it were second nature.

So, take that fear! You can just crawl back to the corner from whence you came. Stay there for a while too this time. You can have yourself a nice, long time out. Say for twenty-thirty minutes. Yes, Channing is catching onto his numbers these days. He's been an absolute riot of color and joy and all things good as of late. A vibrant and bright spot amongst all else. He deserves his own post though. He more than deserves his own post. It will come. Soon.

The ever present and watchful Lamby.

In the meantime we're celebrating this little girl.

Remember her? You might recognize her sweet little cheeks from these pictures taken back in August.

There's something so irresistible about baby yawns, isn't there?

This would be the hat that started it all. Sophie's strawberry hat from the NICU courtesy of my mom.

2 comments:

Glad sweet cheek Sophie is back. Sounds like she's not the only one, which is a big relief to this girl. And if you keep trying to be me, I may have to challenge you to a race and see who can get stiches out faster.